N.D.Ga.: A wire mesh “ceiling” over a storage unit doesn’t provide a REP from someone climbing a ladder and looking

A defendant lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in a storage unit with a wire mesh “ceiling” where the officer used a ladder and looked over the wall. There was insufficient effort to maintain privacy from others just looking. United States v. Khan, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182723 (N.D. Ga. Aug. 19, 2016), adopted, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9231 (N.D. Ga. Jan. 23, 2017):

The Court finds both Hendrickson and Yaya persuasive. In this case, the commercial storage units walls were of similar height; there was no more than mesh wiring covering the tops of the units; the Defendants made no effort to conceal the contents of the units, either by covering the boxes or adding an opaque barrier to the wire ceiling; the managers of the facilities were suspicious that contraband was contained in the units; the managers invited and encouraged Agents Gehan and Hogan to use the facility’s ladders, placed in common space (or space not utilized by the Defendants), to observe the contents of the units; and the Agents did not trespass into or otherwise disturb the units themselves or Defendants’ property contained in them. Defendants, whose burden it is to demonstrate that they had a legitimate expectation of privacy in the units, have put forth no evidence that any person using the facility – whether owner, manager, employee, or storage user – could not and/or did not make observations of the units in question, or any other unit at the storage facilities. Indeed, that management chose not to enclose the units, and instead kept a ladder readily available that was just tall enough to view over the sides of the units from the common/public area, and that they both invited the Agents to make such observations, more plausibly suggests that there should not be any legitimate expectation of privacy in the units.